Brownlee brothers go for gold

Alistair Brownlee (L) poses with his gold medal next to his brother and bronze medalist Jonathan Brownlee at last year’s Olympics

There is a certain irony that a poster advertising this weekend’s ITU series Triathlon final in Hyde Park featured a photograph of the Brownlee brothers with the words ‘Made in London’ emblazoned above them.

“You having a laugh?!” tweeted elder brother Alistair in response to it.

The brothers are Yorkshire through and through. Their home, or homes, rather – Jonny moved into his own house 500 metres down the road from Alistair after last summer’s Olympics – in Bramhope could not be further from London life. They swim, train and run in the countryside for more than five hours a day. The Yorkshire hills and dales have provided with them with the perfect environment to foster their early interest in at least the running and cycling sides of the discipline.

Meanwhile, a preponderance of swimming pools in the area helped enable them to swim five times a week whilst growing up. The environment has also made them extremely hardy competitors. Whereas many of their rivals will be glancing up at the skies, quivering at the thought of unrelenting rain engulfing the Capital this weekend, the Brownlee brothers will welcome it. It is almost as if they brought it with them from Yorkshire!

“Neither of us are massive fans of racing in hot conditions, so it’s good that it’s raining,” says Alistair.

“Not that we really like the rain,” he is quick to add. “But just that we think everyone else likes it less. It makes the bike more interesting too – slippery corners and stuff, which probably means I’m going to fall off!”

The Olympic gold medallist has suffered a frustrating year with injuries, which have seen him miss large parts of the season with a recurring ankle injury. His running has been particularly curtailed in recent weeks. Yet he has still managed to find a way of racing in a sufficient number of races to leave him in pole position to win back his brother’s title this year. Brownlee senior has managed victories in San Diego, Kitzbuhel and Stockholm and should be at home on the same course he won Olympic gold last year.

On returning to the scene of his greatest triumph, Alistair said:

“It’s mixed emotions. On one hand it’s great. We get to race on the Olympic course again, and with all the thousands of age groupers and under 23s to race is fantastic; it’s a brilliant legacy. But on the other hand it would have been quite nice to draw a line under it and move on.”

His brother, the only man to beat Alistair this year, albeit in Hamburg over the shorter sprint distance, feels similarly.

“For me it’s a strange feeling because last year was so special and it felt like a once in a lifetime opportunity. But it’s nice to be back because it has great memories for me, and seeing all those thousands of supporters last year was a brilliant experience.”

The pair have their destiny in their own hands; if either wins tomorrow’s race, they will finish as world champion and join another of their Leeds based training partners Non Stanford, who won the women’s final today, on top of the podium. The Spanish athlete Javier Gomez, currently in third place, is the elephant in the room however. Twice a world champion himself, and runner up to Alistair in the Olympics, the man from Galicia has had another consistent season. He won in Auckland, and has put together a string of podium positions. While he may not have beaten both Brownlees in the same race yet, he comes into London in excellent form, having finished second to Alistair in Stockholm last month.

“It has been a pretty long season. I am feeling very good for the last part of the year and am doing my best races of the season at the moment. Last year London was one of my best races ever. I have great memories, so I’m looking forward to it,” the 30-year-old said.

However he acknowledged that overcoming the Brownlees could be a task to tough. “If you want to beat the Brownlees you will have to have a great day, get your tactics spot on, and hope that they don’t have such a good day. They are great athletes. The fastest runner will be the winner. So I’ll be doing my best and see how it goes.”

All sensible money will be on the Brownlees, who have become household names and faces since their performances last summer. Indeed, the publicity the pair have provided the sport has helped see participation grow by more than 30,000 in Britain since 2009. They are now constantly in demand – be it journalists, sponsors, or fans, and can no longer walk down the street without being stopped to sign autographs and have photos taken with adoring members of the public.

For all the attention they garner, their focus is still very much on training though. They recently completed a five week training block at altitude in St Moritz, and when they are not munching their way through copious amounts of cake, baked by Alistair’s seventy-something next door neighbour, they are putting themselves through a gruelling 5 hours of training a day. This amounts to more than 20,000 metres of swimming a week, hundreds of miles of running a month, and thousands of hours on the bike a year.

During the last few weeks, they have been scaling back the training in preparation for the race though. The five hours of training a day has become a ‘meagre’ two and a half hours this week. Meagre! It’s still more than most of us do in a week, let alone a day! Since arriving in London by train on Thursday, they have been taking advantage of Imperial College’s swimming pool for their training, and were heading out for an hour of riding after their press commitments on Friday afternoon.

“I like to keep my body moving. If I stop then suddenly everything stops. Like when you finish at school and you get a cold. It’s similar to that,” says Jonny.

“On the morning of the race itself, I normally do nothing though. When you get a lunchtime start (London kicks off at 1.30pm) I get up and go for a walk, sometimes on the course. It’s quite nice to clear your head. I have breakfast. I try to keep it very simple, some simple cereals with bread and jam; maybe some Weetabix and some muesli. I’ll eat again at 11.30. Ideally I’d have some pasta with tomato sauce and salt. Not very exciting!”

If the preparations are not exciting, the end result almost always is. If the pair can repeat their heroics of last year in Hyde Park tomorrow then they will take another step towards becoming one of Yorkshire’s greatest exports.

How to watch the Hyde Park ITU Triathlon Final:

- Hyde Park (Free Entry). 1.30pm start.

- BBC Two. 1pm.